A Path Made Plain Read online

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  1

  The minivan’s air conditioner gave one last puff of cold air not long after Silas Fry drove across the Florida state line. Silas merely lowered the front windows without saying anything to the children.

  How many more hours to Sarasota? Two? Three?

  “I wish we were back in Africa.” Lena sighed and fanned herself where she sat in the front passenger seat. She leaned toward the open window. Her sigh sounded as if her world had suddenly crumbled. At nearly nineteen, she tended to see life in extremes. And Belinda had been the one adept at handling her moodiness.

  “Me, too.” Matthew’s echo was born of always wanting to follow in Lena’s trail.

  “I know you do, I know.” Silas forced his voice to come out around the lump in his throat. Africa, his home. Their home. It would never be the same without Belinda. None of them would be.

  Despite what Belinda had done long, long ago, he’d loved his wife until the very end. Until the day a semi had plowed into the van in which she and some other ladies had been riding home from a quilt auction. And he’d loved her for a long time after.

  None of those who died had suffered, the families were told. Suffering was left for the rest of the families left behind, spouseless husbands, motherless children. For them, the wounds ran deep and healed slowly.

  Silas filled his lungs with the fresh, humid air blowing into the van. “Your great-uncle said we’ll have plenty of time to go to the beach after supper tonight.”

  The seashore. The ocean had been the one constant where they’d lived in Africa, not far from the coast in Mozambique. And, one big reason he’d chosen to move them all to Florida. In landlocked Ohio, the children had balked and he even found himself feeling a bit constricted, his only refuge in the air, flying a Cessna.

  Life with Belinda as their hub had fallen apart. Somehow, with God’s help, they’d find a way to put it back together again.

  Someone had told him children were resilient.

  Children?

  He often needed to remind himself that Lena wasn’t a child anymore, her studies had ended long ago, and she was planning to continue her education, not to become a teacher like her mother but a medical assistant. She’d already completed her high school equivalency certificate and planned to enroll in college in Sarasota.

  Matthew was not a child either, all of fourteen and idolizing his older sister with her take-charge view of the world. They’d already discussed him finishing school in Pinecraft at the Mennonite school, after seeing where he compared to other students his age. He had a good eye for building and construction, as well as taking motors apart and putting them back together. Silas wasn’t sure where he’d come by his skill.

  But Silas couldn’t help thinking of both of them as children. He’d been there from the beginning, when their first cries rang out. He’d seen them grow and thrive, through first words and first stumbles, through the first days of “I can do it myself.” Especially with Lena, who seemed to have come from her mother’s womb sure of herself and the world.

  Lena shifted, her tanned feet now tucked up in the corner between the door and the dashboard, her chin resting on her hand as she gazed at the palm trees they zipped past along the highway.

  Silas cast a look in the rearview mirror. Matthew, wearing his favorite shirt Belinda had sewn with the help of an ancient sewing machine before they’d left Africa. Not long from now, the sleeves would be too short and the last of Belinda’s lovingly sewn clothing would be ready to donate to someone else’s growing child.

  “I miss the beach, and fishing,” Matthew continued.

  “We’ll have plenty of time for it here.”

  “But you’re going to work.”

  “I am. I need to earn money for us, just like other fathers do.” He’d explained to Matthew before. Lena accepted, and truthfully, she was more concerned with her own studies. Maybe it was her way to cope. He understood, part of him wanting to be at the controls of a plane instead of a minivan towing a small trailer with all their worldly goods.

  Silas relaxed his grip on the steering wheel and decelerated. He wasn’t flying, doing what made his heart soar the most. God hadn’t taken it away from him. He would fly again, soon, enough.

  The Aviation Fellowship friends—like family, after his and Belinda’s more than a decade serving overseas—had sent them off with a generous check and the beginnings of setting up a household.

  “One day, you’ll be back, Silas,” Levi Brubaker had told him before they left Ohio. “God has you called to missions.”

  “My mission is in Florida now, with my family.”

  “I understand. We’ll be ready to have you back when the time is right.”

  A lump had swelled his throat as he’d cut ties with the ministry he’d poured himself into. What would he—they—do now? Life for his fellow missionaries and pilots would go on. They all promised to keep in touch, of course. But things had changed too much for Silas to continue to subject his family to more uncertainty.

  Which is what they were doing right now, the van limping its way to Sarasota and the Amish and Mennonite village of Pinecraft, their new home.

  And, where Rochelle Keim lived.

  He’d thought of her, several times, over the years. Each time he’d pushed the thoughts away. Deliberately trying to discover how Rochelle fared wouldn’t be good, for anyone. Now, though, he wondered how she’d aged, if her brown eyes still were soft, expressive, warm, and kind. Her beautiful hair—

  “Are you okay, Dad?”

  He blinked, and glanced at his daughter.

  “Mostly. It’s been a long trip.”

  “I wish we could have flown. I wish you still had a plane.”

  “Me too. But this has been a good way for you to see some of the United States you’ve never seen before.”

  Lena shrugged. “That’s true.” She paused. “The air conditioning’s not working.”

  “No. It’s not. I’ll see about getting it fixed after we get settled.”

  God, we need a lot of things fixed.

  He thought they’d been fine, as fine as they could be. Until losing Belinda. Had it been almost a year?

  He always believed when you didn’t know what to do, do the next obvious thing God expected of you. And so, he was. Being a father, providing for his family again, soon, piloting for a small private airport that often needed pilots on call for short chartered flights. His one concession to the children had been moving to Florida, to the coast, to the small Plain village within a thriving city.

  Whatever came next, he had no idea.

  *

  Of all days for the washer to break down, and her with a pile of laundry. Rochelle Keim hauled the laundry basket from her house to the van, and plunked it into the back. Part of her kapp caught on the edge of the van’s hatch and the kapp, including hairpins, nearly slid off her head. Ow.

  The village of Pinecraft had its own Laundromat, the only one Rochelle knew of with its own set of clotheslines—bring your own clothespins.

  Betsy and Emma, her Amish nieces a couple of times removed, were busy with a morning of wedding planning. How Rochelle wished she could have joined them. But no, she said she’d take care of all the household laundry, including bedsheets, towels, and clothing. Afterward, she had one cleaning client to visit, Emma had her own clients to serve, and Betsy was needed back overseeing business at Pinecraft Pies and Pastry.

  Rochelle tried not to sigh. The action wouldn’t change anything. Some days, she was tired of cleaning up after other people, herself included.

  She fetched two more baskets of laundry, one of them sopping, from the house, then slammed the van’s hatch closed.

  She had already placed a call to Henry Hostetler, one of Pinecraft’s handymen and contractors extraordinaire, about checking the washing machine if he had a spare moment. But the older man was busy finishing replacing a roof, and promised to stop by on the way home just before suppertime.

  Rochelle
drove through Pinecraft’s sunny streets, giving the occasional three-wheeled adult cycles wide berth. Most people walked or bicycled the village’s streets, nestled on both sides of Sarasota’s busy Bahia Vista Avenue, and flanked on one end by the meandering Phillippi Creek.

  Thankfully, she tucked her van into one of the few parking spots. She wouldn’t have to lug her laundry too far. An Old Order Amish woman, Rochelle couldn’t recall her name at the moment, moved her tricycle with its little trailer out of the way. The woman waved and smiled, then mouthed a gut morning.

  Rochelle returned the wave and smile. She reminded herself she was blessed to live in such a place as Pinecraft, where Amish and Mennonites of all orders and fellowships converged, most of them during the winter months. A few, like her, called the village home year ’round. Right now, the place was what some might call the proverbial ghost town.

  But she couldn’t imagine herself living anywhere else. The only other home she’d known was Ohio, and she’d severed ties with that part of her life a long time ago. Her parents, formerly Amish, left their order when she was but a girl, and joined the Mennonite church.

  Even her father didn’t quite understand why she’d uprooted herself and moved to Florida when she was barely twenty.

  “God will guide your path; don’t be hasty,” her father had said.

  Rochelle smiled at her father’s words as she tugged the first load of laundry from the back of the van. She’d used those same words when providing counsel to her younger Amish nieces. However, haste hadn’t goaded her to leave her family in the Midwest.

  With the age of forty growing closer, day by day, month by month, with half a lifetime of years behind her growing up in Ohio, she wondered if she’d have listened to herself when she was her nieces’ ages of twenty and twenty-two.

  “Good morning,” said Nellie Bontrager, the owner of the three-wheeler and trailer. “I see you have a household’s worth of laundry there.”

  “Washer’s broken.” Rochelle shrugged.

  “Here. I’ll get the other basket for you.”

  “Thanks.” She also tried to shrug off the unsettled feeling she had after hearing the washing machine clunk to a halt, belt screeching.

  She wasn’t just tired of cleaning other people’s messes. She was tired of cleaning.

  Period.

  At least today.

  Nellie huffed as she trudged along to the nearest empty washing machine. “Good thing it’s not washday.”

  “Good thing,” Rochelle agreed. If it was Monday, wash day for many in the village, she’d have to wait her turn for an empty washer. She ought to be thankful the calendar read Tuesday. Instead, her agitation simmered inside her, as if she were an unhappy three-year-old.

  Instead of stomping her foot, she sighed, and set the basket she carried on the floor. The clomping noise the basket made didn’t quite mask her sigh.

  “Is everything all right, Rochelle?” Nellie’s expression didn’t quite pierce Rochelle, but the older woman studying her was enough to make Rochelle stare at the sopping wet bedsheets and undergarments. She needed to get the detergent and bleach from the van.

  “Yes. No. I, I’m not sure.” She had to force the confession out. Rochelle never liked to be unsure of much. Uncertain decisions like choosing which flavor of pie to order at Yoder’s Restaurant for dessert—now they were a nice uncertainty. No matter what the decision, the results would have a delicious outcome.

  Of course, everything was all right—with her—other than the fact today she hated cleaning, and her, a professional cleaning woman.

  “It’s—it’s the weddings. I shouldn’t talk about it, because it’s not my business.” She’d already said too much.

  “Is it Betsy and her tattooed baker?” Nellie shook her head and clicked her tongue.

  “No, no. Betsy and Thaddeus are doing fine.” Of course, a few still doubted Thaddeus’S baptism into the Amish faith, despite his proving time, baptism, and him settling once and for all into the Amish fellowship in Pinecraft.

  “Ah, young Emma and Steven, then.”

  Rochelle nodded. “Emma is young.” She didn’t add that Emma had broken off her engagement last winter to Eli Troyer back in Ohio, and chose to remain in Pinecraft with her older sister, Betsy, the two of them occupying Rochelle’s spare bedroom. She didn’t add Emma never seemed to be able to make up her mind on matters and sometimes it changed with the breeze.

  Despite her seeming indecisiveness and the rumblings throughout the community, Emma had joined the Mennonite church and planned to marry Steven. Emma attended services with Rochelle regularly, but little things made Rochelle worry if the union between Steven and Emma ought to take place.

  Rochelle could clean and organize, but the matters of a twenty-year-old young woman had Rochelle’s hands tied. Perhaps it’s why God had willed her no family of her own.

  Although with Betsy’s easygoing ways, Rochelle had wondered more than once what it would have been like to have a young woman like Betsy as a daughter. Emma, though, would have caused her to build up calluses on her knees over the years.

  “I hear they’ll be here today, likely, and are renting a home from John Stoltzfus,” Nellie was saying.

  “Oh, who’ll be here today?”

  “Silas Fry, and his family.”

  “In Pinecraft?” Of course, Nellie meant Pinecraft. John Stoltzfus, an Amish man who lived in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, owned property in the village and leased it with the help of Nellie’s neighbors, a Mennonite couple who lived in Pinecraft.

  “Yes, Pinecraft. You know his wife died almost a year ago. Tragic. The van accident.”

  “Yes, I remember.” Rochelle nodded and kept her hands steady as she poured laundry detergent into the machine. She still remembered the day her sister had shared the news with her.

  More than once, she’d prayed for Silas and his family, as she ought to. More than once, she’d poured out long-restrained tears about losing Belinda, her one-time best friend. However, she’d lost Belinda years and years ago, before the semi-truck ended her time on this earth.

  *

  Rochelle, 19

  “My grandmother’s turning eighty,” Belinda Miller announced. “Almost four times our age.”

  “You make it sound ancient.” Rochelle shook her head, and laughed from her place at the sink. A few more dishes to wash, then she and Belinda could leave to go shopping for ingredients for Estelle Miller’s gigantic birthday cake.

  “Well, eighty is ancient, almost. Momma says she looks great for her age, and Grandma says she doesn’t care how she looks for her age, she’s happy to still be here to keep Grandpa out of mischief.”

  “There, I’m done.” Rochelle set the last plate in the dish drainer, then wiped her hands. Their fellowship would celebrate the birthday of the matriarch of the Miller family during the coming weekend, and both she and Belinda had volunteered to make the cake. Belinda had taken several cake decorating lessons at a local bakery supply shop, and she was eager to show off her skills.

  Rochelle was just along for the ride on this one, she’d assured Belinda, who’d designed a three-tiered round cake, white frosting, and multicolored wildflowers made of sugar.

  “Did I tell you John Hershberger is picking me up for the party?” Belinda’s cheeks flushed.

  “So, you two are courting! And you didn’t tell me?” Rochelle threw the dishtowel at Belinda’s head. “I knew you’d been giggling and looking at him at youth meetings for months now.”

  Belinda ducked. “No, silly. We’re not courting. Yet. I’m sure we will be soon.”

  For the past few months, all Rochelle had heard was John Hershberger this and John Hershberger that. Rochelle had been tuning her best friend out, because her college studies had kept her busy. Too busy for many of the activities the young adults participated in at Hope Mennonite Church.

  However, one meeting not long ago had captured her attention. A missionary group, visiting from overseas, told th
em all about the great need for workers. Teachers. Doctors. Nurses. Pilots.

  At the word nurse, Rochelle’s ears had perked up higher than her father’s dog, Patches, did. She was already studying hard for her nursing degree at their local college.

  “There is great need here in the United States for good nurses, and nursing care, but all members of the medical field are needed in Africa, especially in developing countries and where the gospel isn’t always welcome,” the speaker had said.

  “Anyway,” Belinda continued, “John said his best friend, Silas Fry, is riding along with him. You should come too. We can all ride to the party together.”

  Daring, riding together, just the four of them in a vehicle.

  Rochelle adjusted her kapp, then smoothed her apron. “I know Silas Fry.”

  Well, knew him in a roundabout way. Silas was the kind of young man everyone noticed. The other young men all liked to be his friend. The other young women liked to smile at him and the boldest struck up conversation. They’d grown up together and participated in the same youth group, but in the last couple of years, childhood friendships had changed into something different as couples began to pair off.

  Rochelle had spoken to Silas recently, entirely by accident. She’d gone up to him, thinking he looked like her cousin from behind and called him by her cousin’s name. He swung around, with laughter in his eyes and she felt a tug of awareness in their blueness reminding her of a happy summer sky.

  “No, I’m not Levi,” he’d said. “I hope you’re not disappointed.”

  “No, I’m not.” She choked out the three words as her face flamed all sorts of hot. Belinda would tease her, probably as much as she’d teased Belinda about her budding romance with John Hershberger.

  But nothing was budding with Silas Fry. She’d tried to keep herself from noticing him, because other young women couldn’t help but notice him. However, from this moment, she didn’t think she’d ever succeed at pretending not to notice Silas Fry, ever again.

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